children's choir

Parky's farm

What do you get when you take 10 kids, 2 moms, some pigs, llamas, and 21 chickens? Lots and lots of fun with some slight moments of insanity.
I met up with a new friend today at Parky's Farm. They just joined our kids, and after talking we realized we have a lot in common. We both have 5 kids, we homeschool them, and well...we have five kids. Do I really need to say more?
I've been to Parky's Farm a few times, and this was by far the best times I've ever had mainly because the kids were allowed to help feed the animals and stuff. They fed the llamas, pigs, cows. They also collected the eggs from the chicken coop and rounded up 20 chickens and 1 rooster. You should have seen the nine kids (Makenna was in her stroller) going around finding the chickens and saying....."Here...chick, chick...Here, chick, chick...." It was so cute, and we just couldn't believe it when they actually got them all in the coop. They did great.

blake's birthday

Can you believe he's EIGHT???? How crazy is that? I can't believe I have an eight year old. I am getting soooooo old! Blake's birthday was on Wednesday. We took a picnic lunch down to Daddy and then all went to a park to celebrate Blake's birthday. I love this second group of pictures. The first one is of him opening a Star Wars vehicle. The second is him opening a video game that he's been wanting forever. The third is him still looking at the video game in shock. And the last, is my favorite. If that picture doesn't prove he's my son...then I don't know what does. There he is holding it and staring very happily at the game as if the game is talking to him. If I would have snapped it a few seconds before...I'm sure I would have gotten him petting it. (For those of you not realizing this...I do the exact same thing when I really like something too.)

"Not Me, Monday"

I promise you that I DID NOT go the past two weeks without doing laundry. My laundry hampers are positively NOT overflowing all over the floor in every bedroom of the house (except the baby's) resulting in my kids wearing normal clothes to bed some days or the same clothes for two days in a row.

I most certainly did make sure that Kaleb changed his mismatched socks every day, and I never actually let him wear his mismatched socks to church.

I definitely did not beg my husband to take me to lunch on Friday, and when he said no (because he already had eaten) did not make my kids have a lunch of popcorn instead. I would always make sure their lunches were completely nutritious including as many food groups as possible.

Oh, and my flower bed in front of my house is not overgrowing with weeds so badly that I'm positive that I saw a snake in there the other day.

My husband and I did not make a deal that I could go to a stamping party and stay out as late as possible if I would go and buy him the Xbox wireless adapter allowing him to play the Xbox upstairs on the big screen TV.

I did not enjoy myself so much hanging out with friends that I didn't want to go home.

I definitely did not enjoy the Wii, nor did I kick Mindy's butt on the boxing, fishing, cow riding, and bowling games.

And I know that I did not discover how out of shape I am by seriously breaking a sweat playing the Wii. There was not sweat pouring off my body like I was running a marathon. I also did not feel any sore muscles the next night because of my Wii playing experience.



This post was inspired by my charming kids blogger.

Climber

As told by the ever-lovely, baby Makenna

1. mmmm...why does mommy always put these here when she is talking to the boys downstairs. I bet if I could get these silly things out of the way..I could have a lot more fun. Shoot, I'm gonna try it. Man, they're heavy, but I have four brothers...I'm pretty strong....UGH....I got it.
2. There's a break in the boxes now. I gotta make a run for it. Go! Go! Go...before she sees me. I can make it. Hurry. Man, I wish I could walk. I bet it would make this go faster. .....What? Is that mommy I hear? I'll just act like I don't hear her. Oh no, she called again. I'll stop and flash her my big huge grin. Maybe she won't even notice that I'm going UP the stairs.
3. What, Mom? I'm just sitting here chillin' on these steps. My tongue is not sticking out of my mouth because I'm outta breath. No, I'm just being cute. And no, or course I'm not gonna fall. I'm not clumsy like you are. It must have skipped my genes. I have perfect coordination. Now if you don't mind...I'll just keep going up? What? I can't? I have to get down. Awww....MOM!!! 4. Okay, fine. I tried anyways. I gave her my best smile and my best innocent look, but she still wants me to get down. So, well...I'll do it this time. ...oh..wait...Man, this going down thing is a lot harder than it looks. It's not so hard going up. Hmmm.. let's see...if i put my hand here, and maybe scoot a little...ooo wait, that box isn't quite so sturdy. Man, I don't think I can do this. "Mum...Mum..."
and Mum comes running.

If only this was the first time she's started going up the stairs. There was once when we were all downstairs, the kids in their playroom, and I was putting a load of laundry in real quick. When I asked Luke where Makenna was. He said, "I don't know." So I look around the basement in Eric's room, my room, the schoolroom, the laundry area, and NOTHING. I couldn't find her anywhere. I started hyperventilating when I heard Luke say, "Here she is mom...UP ON THE STAIRS." That little pistol had made it to the very top of the stairs. ARGHHHH!!!!

The pictures say it all

Just think....

..this is the man who didn't think he would like having a little girl! Could have fooled me.....

ps...Thanks, Betsy, for capturing all of this moments when we were there.

First week of school

Well, we made it through the first week of school. I'm not gonna lie....It was hard, but that was my fault. I decided that we needed to cram in as much as possible in the first week of school to get a little caught up for starting too late. Smart, huh? But well, we made it through. The boys are champions!

We typically started the day with Bible class over breakfast. Then it's downstairs where the older boys do some seatwork while I teach Jakeb. Kaleb likes to sit in sometimes, and I let him. Poor Makenna is just stuck downstairs with us playing in the playroom or in the playpen. She likes to try to climb the stairs, but we fixed that problem...well...sort of...I'll show you that later.

Then when I finish up with Jakeb, it's Blake and Luke's turn. We still haven't' figures out exactly when to do science and geography. Sometimes we get to that, and sometimes we don't. Hey, I'm not perfect!

But like I said, we made it, and so far this week (It's only Tuesday.), it's going much better.

What I learned from today......

I was so excited to be going to church this today. I feel like I haven't been there in forever. For those of you who don't know..I'm in charge of Master's Club on Wednesday nights, so I miss church on Wednesday, and I'm also in charge of nursery..(still not exactly sure how that happened), so I miss some other services. Throw that in there with going out of town last weekend, and well, I think you might get why I said I feel like I haven't been there in forever. So I was pumped...ready to hear God speak to me.
It's funny that I said...."I was ready," because obviously He wasn't ready to do the talking at least not in the way that I thought. I got to church finding that someone had already set up for nursery...whoo-hee! (Not having a building yet means lots of setting up and tearing down.) My workers showed up for Sunday School...great! I enjoyed Sunday School a lot. Our Sunday School teacher was out of town, so we had Charles Parton speak. He did a superb job, and I loved how he referred to the Bible over and over again. I mean, we were constantly looking stuff up, and I was amazed that some of the stuff was even in there. (Sarah, tell Charles thank you!)
Then I went to check on nursery for Sunday morning church. ARGHHHH!! I had just switched the schedule around, and the person who I had just put on the list was out of town....(not her fault.. totally mine). So, yours truly was stuck in nursery. Yes, I said stuck. What a rotten attitude, huh? I was so upset. I seriously almost cried because I wanted to be in the church service so badly. Don't I just sound so spiritual? I had a bad additude about it, and I'm ashamed of it.
Fast forward to our family getting ready to leave for the evening service when I get a message from another worker saying she wasn't gonna be there tonight. AHHHHHH!!! The sub for the night had subbed last Sunday night, so I wasn't gonna ask her, so I had resigned myself to the fact that I was gonna be in there yet again! GRRR..... I was griping to Eric about the whole thing, and he was telling me that I should get on people's back more often about being in there. But seriously, this doesn't happen that often, so I was mad at him for not listening to me gripe. I told him that I didn't want his advice, I just wanted to talk! (Women, you all know how it is....sometimes you just want a listening ear.) Well, saying that only made him mad, and that made me double mad.
That's when it hit me. This was a ministry that I was supposed to be doing unto God, but here I was trying to do it on my own. I wasn't even involving God. I was involving my husband, but he had no more control over it all than me. So what was the point of involving him? So often we try to fix things on our own or by involving someone else, when the only person we really need to involve is God. I asked God to help the ministry tonight, and to please let me not have to work in nursery. And you know what? He answered my prayer with a whopping YES! Lookee there, I was so upset about missing the service this morning. I thought I was getting the short end of the stick. I thought that I was missing out on God speaking to me.
But you know what, God still spoke to me today. Not in the way that thought He would which only goes to show that our ways are not His ways. I think that people think that they can only be spoken to by God if they read the Bible or if they listen to the preacher. And yes, I know that those are two of the main ways that God speaks, but I realized today, that sometimes God speaks through circumstances that surround you... sometimes in a quiet voice. He chides us for not involving Him, and yet because He loves us He forgives us and still answers our prayers.

Prayers needed

I don't know this family, but I read of their story through some other blogs that I surf. Please keep them in your prayers. The Nielson's are a young couple with four children six and under. The parents and their instructor were in a plane crash back in August. The instructor didn't make it, and the parents are in critical condition with burns covering 30% of his body and 80% of hers. I've been keep up to date on the story,but here's where you can check it out if you would like. Here's their site, and her sister's blog that is updated almost every day, and
here is Nienie's blog so that you you can actually get to know her. Please pray for them. I can't imagine what this family must be going through, but they are trusting God to carry them through it all.

First day of Co-op

This year we decided to do a co-op along with homeschooling. In case you don't know, a co-op is when a whole bunch of homeschool moms get together and have their kids to classes together. For instance my kids have a geography class together, a human body class together, and then they are split up too. Blake has a science experiments class, Luke has ART (which he loves), and Jakeb has math games and PE. Even Kaleb has preschool and Makenna is in nursery. The moms all stay and help with a couple of classes. Here's a couple of pictures......one is through a glass door. I was hiding out in the hallway outside of the gym. The teacher must have said, "Where is that flash coming from?" And Jakeb told on me. He said, "It's my mom taking pictures!" Little stinker! I didn't get to do any school shopping yet, so next week I'll take pictures of them with their backpacks.....just like the real first day of school.

Happy Birthday, Kaylee!!!

Today is my niece's 10th birthday! Man, she hit the double digits!!! We love you, Kaylee!!!

Baptism

Here's my baptism pics that I said I would post. Our church doesn't have a building yet, so during the summer time we baptize in a member's swimming pool. The whole experience was completely surreal. It's hard to exactly put it in to words, but coming back out of the water was.... amazing. Jesus is sooooooo good to me. I thank Him every day for what He has done in my life.

Jakeb and Kaleb's new room

After close to a year of combining all the boys in one room and having total chaos in their room from all the clothes and toys...(four boy have lots of toys!!), they are finally split up again. Blake and Luke have their room back, and Kaleb and Jakeb are back in their room.....their ORANGE room!!! It's sooooooo cool. I love it, and so do they. Of course, I really like orange, and have always wanted some type of orange room, so I was thrilled when I found these sports comforters. We threw in a green wall just for fun....plus the paint was only $5, and it matched perfectly. We still need to get some curtains/blinds for the room, but we will eventually. Of course, some decorations on the walls would be nice too, but...well...eventually it'll happen. We're just happy to let them have their own room back. I'll try to post some more pictures later when we get it completely complete. (Wow, was that redundant or what?)

I had to just throw this on in there because they are so cute.

And man, you should see the size of Blake's and Luke's room now with half of the stuff gone. It's HUGE!!! Shoot, they're toys don't even fill up the shelves anymore because we moved them into the younger boys' room.(Unfortunately, we need to do some paint touch ups because Luke started peeling the paint off the wall, and Kaleb decided to put some stickers on the wall resulting in peeling off the paint too. GRRR... Boys will be boys, I guess.)

Labor Day Weekend

We went to the Pelkey's this past weekend. What fun!!! We ALL had a great time. I think I seriously gained 5 pounds just from all of Betsy's cooking. She's amazing! She made homemade bread, rolls, cinnamon rolls, brownies, cookies, blueberry buckle...oh...and she made those little Hostess cupcakes...you know the ones with creme in the middle and frosting on the top. YUM! Not to mention all the other homemade things she made us. She makes the best food ever!

We arrived on Saturday around lunch time and hung around the house for awhile. Well, Eric and Anthony went and played golf, and us girls hung around the house while the kids played. That night we took all the kids to a park. The park was pretty cool because they had a MONSTER slide. Everyone had fun on that thing even mommy and daddy. (Oh, and check out the bottom right picture. Betsy was taking a picture of me when she realized there was a not so wonderful word nicely carved into a tree above my head....hence the reason there's a huge CENSORED on it. We got a huge kick out of it.)

That night I succeeded in kicking butt in one of my favorite games ever....Mexican Train! Who-hee!!!! Of course, we had to play house rules which are different from mine, but they worked well in my favor!
On Sunday, we went to church with them. They had a potluck and an afternoon service instead of an evening service, so that freed up our evening. Betsy made plans to walk the boardwalk and then over to the beach to grill out. Notice the two kids who were entirely NOT happy on the boardwalk?? The beach was absolutely beautiful and the sunset was AMAZING!! Monday we vegged around the house while the boys went golfing and then the us girls went shopping on Monday night. Too bad we forgot it was Labor Day and most stores closed early! GRRR... We still managed to have fun shopping at Target and Walmart. We tend to not like each other's taste. Okay, we actually make fun of each other's taste. We took pictures of each other's taste....and we want to take a poll. Who do you think has better taste?? (I personally think it's all a matter of opinion. Seriously, could you see me even looking at that white basket with pink little flowers on it? HA!!!) So which one do you like?

This is Betsy's pillow. She seems to think that if people saw the pillow of the shabby chic junk...that more people will vote for her! Blech!!Anyways, we had a great time at their house, and hope to do it again sometime!! Thanks, Betsy and Anthony, for EVERYTHING! You guys ROCK!